The Dallas Morning News praised Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis for taking responsibility for fudging parts of her lifestory.
In an editorial published late Tuesday night the Texas newspaper, which first broke the story said it was “good to see Davis, a state senator from Fort Worth, take responsibility for the need to be “more focused on the detail of her story.””
Davis, in recent days, has tried to pivot to the offensive in response to the Morning News’s report that Davis had incorrectly said she was divorced at 19 instead of 21 and that other aspects of her life story were not as she had been saying.
The editorial, though, was not straight praise for Davis. It also said it was “disappointing” that Davis messed up the details in the first place, particularly since her campaign “has been the source of chronological error and allowed misperceptions to jell as a fact.”
The editorial also criticized her campaign’s attempt to try and pivot the episode about her background to an attack on Attorney General Greg Abbott, Davis’s Republican opponent in the gubernatorial race. Davis has accused Abbott of fueling the entire story about her background.
“No, that’s not what Abbott did,” the editorial said. “No one is disputing that Davis worked hard for years and overcame obstacles that few people manage to overcome — singe mothers especially. Davis deserves credit for that. And she’s right that a single mother’s story of struggle is one that millions of women can identify with.”
The editorial also cautions the importance of Davis messing up some of the details. It argues at one point that “the fuller picture is far more complicated and less useful as a political narrative.”
